[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] US-based Nvidia posted earnings that exceeded market expectations in the fourth quarter of last year, fueled by the semiconductor super boom.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 24th (local time), Nvidia announced that it recorded earnings per share of $3.10 in the fourth quarter of last year. This surpassed the average market forecast of $2.81 compiled by financial information provider Refinitiv.
Revenue also rose 61% year-on-year to $5 billion (approximately 5.55 trillion KRW), exceeding the market forecast of $4.82 billion.
This strong performance was mainly driven by increased demand for its core products due to the benefits of COVID-19. With more people working from home and spending longer hours indoors due to the pandemic, demand for PC gaming and data centers surged significantly.
Nvidia, the world's largest graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturer, generated about half ($2.5 billion) of its total revenue in the fourth quarter from its gaming chip business. This represents a 67% increase compared to the same period last year.
Expanding on its core graphics processing technology, Nvidia has broadened its business scope to include video games, Bitcoin mining, artificial intelligence computing, data centers, and autonomous vehicles.
With the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, Nvidia expects the boom in remote computing services to continue this year and has raised its first-quarter revenue target to $5.3 billion. This significantly surpasses Wall Street’s estimate of $4.51 billion.
The market also cheered the strong results. Nvidia’s stock closed up 2.5% at $579.96 that day. As a beneficiary of COVID-19, Nvidia’s stock price has more than doubled in the past year, even surpassing US semiconductor company Intel.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
